


hurt whilst you can

by nbsherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Canon Compliant, Retirement, Sussex, it's essentially canon compliant up until after the plane scene in tab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 20:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbsherlock/pseuds/nbsherlock
Summary: he forces himself to breathe and knows sherlock is breathing elsewhere.--everything has an end.





	hurt whilst you can

**Author's Note:**

> well. hi again. i've found myself back here again. writing sherlock fic on my phone. this time i took three days to tinker with this until i liked how it read. title from life lesson by dodie clark. not betaed or britpicked and as always, written in all lower case on purpose. 
> 
> tw for mention of overdose and ivs, and also a blatant lack of understanding regarding medicine and how to treat an opiate overdose.

it's a slow and steady beat; something that might coincide with a dance. john tries to write it into his memory so he can recount it to sherlock, later. so he can teach him the steps to his heartbeat, the living bit of him keeping him alive, pumping blood through his body; proof of life but also of humanity.

john thinks of him, end of a pen between his teeth, deciding between shades of purple, calling him the bravest and kindest and wisest, and thinks those things are proof of humanity enough.

he ignores the scar on his chest, as it proves no point. bits of shrapnel dug out of him. john's cane, discarded in the hall closet. all metal and gunpowder. sherlock may have a scar but john has one to match and feels less human for it.

john holds a cold and weightless hand in his, pulse oximeter on sherlock's middle finger. there's no reciprocated clutch. john holds on for dear life. sherlock breathes.

"fuck," john hisses, under his breath. runs a hand over his forehead. a cold sweat. a lurch in his stomach. he swallows.

from his seat by sherlock's bed, he can see out the window. other buildings, a car park, and above that, the grey london sky. it's raining, and the tap of it against the glass interferes with the sound of sherlock's heart monitor. a different sort of tempo, a different beat. john taps it out with his other hand-- the hand not holding sherlock's-- against his thigh. the tap of the rain, the steady beep of the monitor.

john, in his 4-some-odd years of knowing sherlock, has found that sleep, for him, is not peaceful.

the only time john has seen sherlock entirely at peace is when he's high off his arse in hospital. right now, he is being treated with a dosage of methadone that made john's brow furrow, mycroft's eyes shut tight, followed by a round of suboxone to ward off withdrawal symptoms.

john reminds himself he is a doctor, but he is also a best friend. a... partner. someone who is weak to see his friend in pain.

it doesn't help. john closes his eyes and remembers:

in regular sleep, sherlock cries out and clutches for things that aren't there. to john's knowledge they have never been there. (a far off conversation, a recollection: how can _we_ not know?) bodies, a lover. (maybe. probably.) some sort of comfort. the warm spread of an opiate, the sharp bright flood of a stimulant. the story of how they met.

a list. some chicken scratch description of a planned overdose, a plane flight where the high goes on and on and never crashes, he'll never come down. except, john saw him burst into rubble and flame. he saw the sheen of his forehead and the panic mixed with a sort of foggy-eyed psychosis he hadn't seen in sherlock before. an insistance that he must get back, that this is not where he should be.

john, heart pounding in his chest, breath catching, holding himself from grabbing sherlock by the shoulders and telling him that this is it. that he is safe and home and the plane ride is over, he can come down and they can go home and they can rest.

instead he gets the sickly green tint of sherlock's skin and a flourish of a hand, a slurred, "morphine or cocaine?"

john feels his shoulders tense up as the door behind him opens and shuts. he knows better than anyone that a back to an unlocked door is asking for a blow to the back of the head. he remains still and listens to the slow tap of mycroft's shoes against the linoleum. john doesn't bother taking his hand from sherlock's. the sweat on his palm keeps their skin warm.

"doctor..." mycroft hesitates. rain falls on rooftops and against windows. "john," he says. "visiting hours are over but if you'd like i can..." he clears his throat, "erm, pull some strings to allow you to stay."

john shakes his head. "could use a shower," he grunts. his hand is still locked with sherlock's.

"well," mycroft starts. "i'll be staying here tonight, so if there are any updates i will let you know."

john closes his eyes. they sting. he breathes. he nods. "alright."

\--

he realizes after they pull up that he had given the cabbie the wrong address.

\--

he still has a key, but as is evident by the sound of the television from 221a, he wouldn't have needed it.

mrs. hudson peeks her head around the corner and blinks when she sees him. "john-"

"mrs. hudson," he greets her, one hand up.

she puts a hand on her hip as she leans against the door frame. "you look awful, you know."

john manages a weak chuckle. "side effect of all this, i s'pose."

john stands before the steps and tilts his head up, still not out of mrs hudson's line of sight.

she bites her lip. "john. you know i'm here, if you want to talk about it. i went through something similar with my husband and you know i knew sherlock before-"

"yes," too loud, "yeah. sorry. i'm sorry." he grips the bannister. "think i might just shower and go to bed. get back to the hospital early."

mrs. hudson nods. "alright, well. if you need anything, john. anything at all, just call down."

john nods. "thanks, mrs. hudson."

he trudges his way up the stairs, favoring his left leg. it feels like starting over, this. from the first night. the most ridiculous thing i've ever done.

he scoffs to himself. all of it, the most ridiculous thing he's ever done. moving in with a stranger. saving his life hours after meeting him. handing him his mobile phone. waking up that morning and deciding on a walk.

\--

he showers perfunctorily. all of the products in the bathroom are sherlock's, so he leaves the shower smelling warm and familiar. not at all like the cheap store brand products he picks up from the tesco down the road when they need to do a grocery run. they. him and mary. cans of beans, jars of marinara sauce, some sort of domesticity that never felt real, her hand on his chest, his chest caving in.

he knows from a quick look that his former room is a mess, so he goes into sherlock's bedroom.

it's clean. neat. john's seen it before. john's slept on these sheets, on this mattress, on danger nights and nights when they had both had too much wine with dinner and john didn't want to make the trek up the stairs, sherlock sleeping on the sofa. somehow, this feels different. the usual tenant of this room is off in a hospital bed recovering from an overdose that john feels partially responsible for. he borrows a threadbare t-shirt (his? maybe.) and a pair of pants and falls asleep.

he dreams of white hospital rooms, women in black.

\--

he wakes to his phone ringing and scrambles to pick it up.

"hello," he croaks.

"good morning, john. before you worry, nothing is wrong, i just thought you'd like to know that he's awake."

john doesn't speak.

> he forces himself to breathe and knows sherlock is breathing elsewhere.

\--

john walks in to sherlock complaining about his nasal cannula. so, the usual.

"oh," sherlock rasps. "john."

john feels his heartrate speed up. a third of him wants to scream and rage over the idiocy of an overdose. the other two thirds want to cry and beg for forgiveness.

his body makes a decision to do something somewhere in the middle. a stifled, anguished cry escapes from between his teeth. sherlock stares at him in confusion, eyebrows bunched together, as if he has the right to a single emotion. (he does. doesn't he?)

john stables himself on the bars at the foot of sherlock's bed. he takes deep, long breaths.

sherlock stares at him. john hears the tap of mycroft retreating.

"again?" john's voice breaks.

"john," sherlock wheezes.

"no," he holds up a finger. "you shouldn't even be talking. so it's my turn."

the beep of his heart monitor. a step, a spin, a dip.

"if you had died on that plane,"

sherlock makes an objective noise,

"no, shut up," john grunts. "if you had died on that plane, seconds before it _fucking_ ," he grinds out the word, "turned around."

sherlock stares at him, eyes wide, helpless.

"have you any idea what that would have done to me?" john's breath heightens, "any at all?"

sherlock's mouth opens and closes. he swallows.

"let me," john starts, and clears his throat. "let me paint a picture for you, write a story, describe a _fucking crime scene_ , whatever will get it through your thick skull."

john takes a deep heaving breath and closes his eyes.

"a doctor steps onto a plane to find his," john struggles, eyes stinging, "his _patient_ unconscious in his seat. the doctor," hot tears start to well up, john opens his eyes and sees them mirrored in sherlock's, his mouth open, unable, not _allowed_ to speak, "rushes to him and checks his pulse, performs cpr, instructs someone to call an ambulance, and then he _can't be the fucking doctor anymore, sherlock_." john hisses out the last words, tears now flowing freely down his face. " _because_ ," he clears his throat, "because, that's his bloody best friend, his fucking... _whatever you want to call it_."

sherlock blinks, digs his fingers into the bed sheets. john watches them curl.

"and he's _dead_ , and there's nothing he can do."

sherlock's eyes, red, irritated, shut.

"and he's had to do it before, as well," sherlock mumbles.

"yeah," john looks out the window. "he's had to do it before as well. and he couldn't fix it then either."

silence, for a while.

"i wanted to kill myself," john says, jarring noise, a violin string snapping.

sherlock's eyes open, confused.

"before i met you. i had it all planned out. two more sessions with ella were covered by my pension, and then that was it. if i wasn't... _miraculously saved_ , then that was it."

sherlock blinks.

john laughs, bitter, soft. "and then i was. miraculously saved, i mean."

"but i needed you, too," sherlock says.

john lets his shoulders go limp. he sits in the chair he sat in yesterday and aches to hold sherlock's hand, again. the veins on the back of his hand are prominent, blue and purple. his skin is translucent.

a vague memory of talk of 'feeding someone up'. john shakes his head, a fond smile covering his face.

"i do need you," sherlock rasps, immediately bursting into a coughing fit. john fetches him water and ice chips, helps him along.

john makes sure he's okay before settling back in his seat.

sherlock sighs and scrunches up his nose. "i hate this."

john closes his eyes. "i hate it too."

\--

after a few days, a week and a half or so, sherlock is cleared to go home with john claiming the role of his doctor. john's hands shake. he doesn't see fit to mention it.

\--

the trip home is uneventful. mycroft has a car bring them to baker street. mrs. hudson fusses over sherlock and makes him a tray of different sweets that he likes. sherlock remarks that he should fall ill more often. mrs. hudson scolds him. john's ears ring.

sherlock stays in bed and rings a bell (an obnoxious, shrill bell) when he needs something. to be helped to the loo, a glass of water, the blankets on his bed rearranged. some company.

john stares at sherlock when he's asleep. his eyes move frantically under the lids. he doesn't move about or make a sound.

john wonders what he's dreaming about. something simple, maybe. a night in front of the telly watching game shows. chinese food after a case. john's fingers against his pulse points.

something simple, like that.

john lays against the headboard, watching, until he drifts off to sleep as well.

\--

he wakes again to a poking at his side. he looks down to see sherlock looking at him, perturbed.

"lay down," sherlock croaks.

"do you need water?" john moves to leave. sherlock grabs the hem of his t-shirt.

"no," he clears his throat, "lay down. you're going to hurt your shoulder like that."

john stares at him. rolls his shoulder a bit. "too late," john remarks.

sherlock sighs, his whole body rising and falling. "just lay down. i'll move over more if need be."

"no," john says, too quick. "i mean," he breathes, "no. i didn't even mean to fall asleep."

sherlock gives him a blank look. "you need to rest as well."

john looks back before shimmying down under the covers, head against the pillow next to sherlock's.

sherlock smiles, a small and shy thing.

john falls asleep within seconds.

\--

later, the two of them sit at the dining table and have takeout from angelo's.

everything seems eerily normal up until sherlock clears his throat and says, "do you plan on going home?"

john looks at sherlock, then down at his plate. he had forgotten this wasn't home.

home was mary, home was uncomfortable silence and jokes about divorce.

"i'm not sure."

sherlock seems caught off guard by this. "what else would you do?"

john coughs and takes a sip of his wine, a nice red they had under the sink.

"i s'pose i'd stay here, if that's alright with you."

sherlock tilts his head. "i have no problem with that, but mary-"

"i don't want to talk about mary."

"we have to talk about mary," sherlock states with finality.

mary, dressed in all black with a silenced gun. shooting a hole into sherlock. carrying his child.

"i'll file for divorce," john says, plainly.

\--

john lays on his back and stares at the ceiling. sherlock's breath has a slight wheeze to it.

"are you okay?" sherlock murmurs.

"oh, of course," john starts. he hears sherlock scoff. "i've only just divorced my assassin wife and found out the baby i thought was mine wasn't real to begin with."

sherlock sighs. "that is what you wanted, is it not?"

john groans and rolls over to face him. "i don't know what i wanted. i wanted... things to be normal." john shakes his head. "i just wanted to come home, sherlock."

"well," sherlock mutters, "welcome."

john chuckles and falls asleep.

\--

it takes two more weeks before sherlock starts discussing sussex. he spends hours looking at cottages and waxing poetic about the area.

an early retirement, he says. he speaks of bees and lie-ins.

john keeps to himself and stews silently. he didn't expect to get left behind so early.

\--

"i think it'll be lovely for us," sherlock says one night amid talks of sussex, in what john has begun to think of as their bed.

"us?" john says, voice muffled with exhaustion.

there's a beat. "yes, us." sherlock shifts and john looks at him. "did you think i was planning on going alone?"

john stares at him. "i still don't know what you're implying."

"us, john. me and you. in sussex."

something shifts.

\--

the cottage is lovely. there are hives in the back and it's all one level, so neither of them will have to use the stairs. sherlock turns to john immediately after they enter and smiles. john smiles back, feels his earth quake.

\--

they still sleep in the same bed. sherlock lays a hand on john's stomach and snores softly at night.

he kisses john's forehead in the morning while making coffee and refers to him as his partner at farmer's markets.

john feels like the train to sussex dropped him in the twilight zone.

\--

one night, they sit on the back deck and listen to the night. john turns as sherlock does and sherlock kisses him.

john kisses back.

a long beat, several beats. a dance.

"what was that, then?"

sherlock blinks, "a kiss?"

john chews at his lip, "i don't believe we've done that before."

sherlock looks forward, eyebrows bunched up. "oh," he says, suddenly, clarity filling his face, along with a deep flush. "oh, bugger."

"i mean," john starts, "it's fine. i just... wasn't expecting it."

sherlock bunches his hair up in his fists. "i'm a moron. i'm an absolute idiot."

john reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder, lightly. "well, first of all, you aren't. but why do you say that?"

sherlock looks up at him, curls astray. "you asked me to marry you in my mind palace."

john blinks. "i what?"

sherlock looks at the ground again and groans. "i know, it's terrible, it's so stupid, i'm-"

"to marry me," john repeats. "we aren't even dating, sherlock."

sherlock blinks again, now pale, then green. he gets up, tilts on one foot, stabilizes himself and walks inside.

john watches him go, waits until he's a good distance away, before he starts to laugh.

\--

john finds him curled up on their bed.

"i ask you out in your head too?"

sherlock lets out a sound of absolute torment.

john sits next to him and threads his fingers into his hair. "s'not a big deal. i guess we've been living like a couple for a bit, now."

sherlock turns onto his back, face now bright red. "yes, john, because i _thought we were_."

"ah," john says. silence. for one, two,

"it's just like me, is it not? to fabricate a relationship out of nothing?"

"wouldn't say it was out of _nothing_."

sherlock groans.

"and, um," john swallows. "i will, for the record."

sherlock freezes. "what?"

"marry you. i will marry you." he stares straight ahead even as he feels sherlock's eyes bore into his skull.

"we haven't dated."

john looks at sherlock, who is still pink, but less embarassed. "well, we never do things the normal way, do we?"

"no," sherlock says. "but i don't have a ring. and in my head, you're the one who proposed."

"alright, well. i'll go out and buy a ring, tomorrow. and then i'll do that."

sherlock lays still for a moment. "okay," he says.

john nods.

"will you kiss me again?" sherlock blurts.

\--

the next night, john gets down on one knee over a curry and asks sherlock to marry him. sherlock says yes and cries into his shoulder. john laughs, but finds himself crying as well.

\--

when they get into bed, they kiss for what feels like an eternity. sherlock's cheeks wet, hands shaking.

"i love you," john says.

sherlock says, "i love you too."

it's well deserved, john figures. they've been through enough. they touch eachother and fall apart, and it's simple, easy.

in the morning they take a much needed shower and repeat.

\--

john doesn't wonder what happened to mary, or to life in london. he's on call at a small clinic in town and works on writing a novel he'll never finish from bits of his blog. sherlock solves cold cases and cooks them dinner, tends to his bees. the two of them grow a garden in the yard.

every so often, he wonders how he got where he is.

it really is the most ridiculous thing he's ever done.

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are appreciated. i'm @margaritaville on tumblr if you wanna chat.


End file.
